We drove from Vancouver, where we picked up our van, to Salmon Arm, Canada and then on to Golden, Canada. There is a beautiful lake at Salmon Arm.
The scenery our our drive was amazing!
We took a nice walk along the river in Golden and went over a covered pedestrian bridge.
That's all from the first part of our Canada journey. Up next is Lake Louise and Moraine Lake in Banff National Park.
Our last stop in Alaska was in Fairbanks. It is in a time zone west of Pacific time and close to the Arctic Circle. We went on a River Cruise that was great fun. We did not spend a lot of time there because we flew from Fairbanks back to Vancouver (via Seattle) on July 4 and our flight was around 1:30 AM. Here are some highlights from our River cruise.
We saw a training center for Iditarod sled dogs on the way down the river.
We were able to get off the boat to walk around a village that was used by native people to the area, We saw reindeer, various animal skins and some replica buildings depicting how they lived.
We saw another sled dog and a float plane takeoff and landing demonstration.
We left Fairbanks early Thursday morning and flew back to Vancouver where we left our van. We will continue our journey on Thursday, July 4 from Vancouver in the next post.
We arrived at the Princess McKinley Lodge on Sunday, Jun. 30. We were supposed to spend 1 night at the McKinley Lodge and then take a bus and a train to the Princess Denali Lodge (for 2 nights) at the entrance to Denali National Park. Unfortunately, there was a wildfire at the Denali National Park entrance on Sunday, so the firefighters shut off all power in the area and nobody went to the Denali Lodge for several days. We were able to see the "Great Mountain" from the McKinley Lodge and hiked a couple of trails there multiple times. By the time we left the McKinley Lodge on Wednesday, Jul. 3, there was still no power at Denali, s we were able to see the lodge and smoke from the fire on our way to Fairbanks Wednesday morning. On our way to the McKinley Lodge, we stopped at Talkeetna,
Fun fact, the mountain called Denali (from the Indian name for "Great One") used to be called Mt. McKinley. There is only one big mountain, they are the same. Denali is the highest peak in North America at 20,310 feet. Also, Mt. Everest is higher, but Denali is actually taller when measured from the base of the mountain. Mt. Everest is higher because it's base is at a higher elevation than Denali. Here is Denali.
Here are more pictures around Talkeetna.
After Talkeetna, we went to the McKinley Lodge, which ended up being a 3 day stay, We could also see Denali from the Lodge.
We hiked the Hill Trail up to a treehouse built by Pete Nelson and the Lodge trail.
We finally rode a motorcoach bus to Fairbanks on Wednesday. We rode by the Princess Denali Lodge and saw smoke from the wildfire.
Our next post will features some highlights from Fairbanks.
